Environment & Energy

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Industry groups have questioned the decades-old science behind cool roofs, downplayed the benefits and warned of reduced choice and unintended consequences. “A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t consider climate variation across different regions,” wrote Ellen Thorp, the executive director of the EPDM Roofing Association, a DC-based national group that represents an industry built primarily on dark materials.

But the weight of the scientific evidence is clear: on hot days, light-colored roofs can stay more than 50 degrees cooler than dark ones, helping cut energy use, curb greenhouse gas emissions and reduce heat-related illnesses and deaths. One recent study found that reflective roofs could have saved the lives of more than 240 people who died in London’s 2018 heatwave.

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Elsewhere, the industry’s lobbyists have notched victories. They lobbied successfully to water down a cool-roof ordinance in Denver and to block stricter standards by the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), a professional organization that creates model standards for city and state regulations. The current ASHRAE standard recommends reflective roofs on commercial buildings in US climate zones 1, 2 and 3, the country’s hottest regions. Those include most of the south, Hawaii, almost all of Texas, areas along the Mexican border and most of California.

Said Thorp in a recent interview: “We’ve been able to stop all of those … mandates from creeping into climate zone 4 and 5.” Another group headed by Thorp, the Coalition for Sustainable Roofing, worked with the lobbyist to propose the bill that eliminated Tennessee’s cool-roof requirement. That rule once applied to commercial buildings in just 14 of the state’s 95 counties, but an update to climate maps in 2021 expanded the requirements to 20 more counties, including its most populous urban area, Nashville.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/01/dark-roof-lobby